


Haunted

by refuted



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-15
Updated: 2013-08-15
Packaged: 2017-12-23 12:46:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/926596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/refuted/pseuds/refuted
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's fitting, she realizes. The first words she says to her are those of an apology.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Haunted

_Now that I've seen your face  
I'm haunted by the letters of your name_

_—_ Lord Huron, "The Stranger"

 

* * *

 

There isn’t anyone on the other line.

While Cosima watches with salient curiosity, Delphine argues with herself, reliving a tired conversation with her mother. The beats are calculated, carefully measured. She can volley both sides by heart.

Her mother never let a conversation die in silence. Deaf vehemence and relentless persistence: Come home. Let me visit. Call more.  
An acute irritation brews in her chest, causing her brows to draw together, her teeth to clench and she can’t tell if the sudden discomfort is because of her mother or someone else. Herself.

Leekie crawls into her mind and she starts to resent him too.

Scientist, not actor.

Still, she takes solace in the guttural vibrations at the back of her mouth. There aren’t English words that warm her throat like _arrête_. Like _merde_. _Fuck_ comes close, but it’s not the same. It leaves an emptiness in her mouth, flat, hollow. The faint reminder of home cuts at her and the conversation begins to feel more real than anticipated.

She sees Cosima watching her and decides she’s done enough, tosses the phone and adds the expletive for effect. She looks up, “Sorry”, and when Cosima shrugs it off, goes to mind her own business, Delphine grabs her purse, planting the transcript as she strides away, letting a wry smile form on worn lips. It’s fitting, she realizes.

The first words she says to her are those of an apology.

-

Cosima invites her home one cool evening after dinner. It’s swimming autumn and the wind begins to bite, beginning with the leaves, blown to the ground, brown and damp under their feet. Delphine feels too warm under layers of wool and cotton, neck wrapped underneath a thick scarf.

France is having an Indian Summer. A brief respite from killer frost and cracked lips, foliage peppering the banks of the Seine. Perfect for picnics on the grass and Delphine lets herself dream a moment, thinks to run away before she compromises more of herself than she can reconcile.

Cosima grew up camping. Stargazing under large trees and small tents. She was a creature of computers and laboratories, but her blood ran on fresh air. Cosima would appreciate the Seine, gleaming white reflections off the sun in the afternoon, the faint aroma of smoke and coffee mixing into the air as they get closer to the 5th arrondissement.

She pulls out a cigarette and wills the sentiment away, anxiously fingering her lighter, inhaling deep. For the first time since university she craves something stronger. Cosima told her she’d get them baked. She considers pushing the subject but only lets out a long, sobering breath as she crosses her arms.

The breeze nips at her cheeks, cooling her down as they look for a taxi. She thinks of Leekie, thinks of Cosima thinking of Leekie. Does she take him for a visionary?

Cosima called his bullshit on the neural chip, looked at him like an overzealous salesman, talked to him with a bite that superseded the cheeky banter. Leekie said Neolution was the future. Cosima said show, don’t tell. She hears Cosima in her mind sometimes. When she’s by herself, left to her own devices, Cosima repeats over and over, show. Show, don’t tell.

“It’s late. I have class in the morning,” she replies, reticent.

“C’mon, I brew a killer cup of Joe,” Cosima encourages lightly. “Or tea. I can make decent tea.” She nudges at Delphine, chides, “You’re too young to act so old. So boring.”

Delphine takes her by the arm, intertwined as Cosima leads them down the street. She lets the invitation sink in. She has a growing list of reasons why not, but what alarms her is that she’s ready to ignore them. She feels the line between business and pleasure begin to blur as she lets herself tiptoe over the threshold: lets herself forget sometimes.

On paper it was different. Surrounding herself with Cosima, on paper, was different. It was easier to keep herself objective with numbers and codes and photographs scattered on her bed in an empty hotel room. Now, she realizes, she’s haunted.

She hears Leekie in her ear, whispering. _Engage_.

“What do you say?” Cosima asks, taking Delphine away from herself. She tilts her head as a grin plays across her lips. Her eyes are playful, bright and welcoming. Honest.

It unravels her.

-

Cosima eyes her with a hunger that makes her pulse jump and her thighs squeeze together involuntarily. The silence between them rings in her ears as Cosima glides around the room, ruffling through her things in an effort to tidy and Delphine steers a conversation towards Leekie, Dyad, pushes her towards the science. Pushes herself towards the science.

Cosima pours them wine instead of coffee and she begins to understand.

-

Leekie plants a kiss at the base of her neck and Delphine turns to face him, gauging his expression, blank, always blank, before she walks into the bathroom to take her make-up off. She stares at herself, sees a woman weary with the exhaustion of pretense.

“How is the subject?” Leekie shuffles around the room, ruffling through the files and folders on her bed. “The bottles you stole weren’t cheap. I hope you made good use of them.”

Silence fills the room. Delphine sees Leekie’s reflection, staring at her, almost through her. He flashes a photo towards the mirror. “Who’s this?”

Delphine doesn't need to turn around, has the smallest details of the image engraved in her mind. “There was a woman at Berkeley. Frankie something, from New York.” _Frankie Davis_ , she recalls with a hard frown. She’s learning more about Cosima than she can admit about herself. “They were together a while, before she came here. I can’t imagine the relationship lasting until now.”

_Long distance never works._

Leekie doesn’t reply for a while. Only stares at the glossy sheet of paper as she clutches the bathroom sink. There's a small bottle of vodka in the fridge and her mouth has gone dry. She reaches up to rub her eyes with the heels of her hands, acutely aware that he's started to stare at her. She licks her lips, averts her eyes. 

“And if the subject were to make advances towards you? You would know how to proceed?”

Delphine grimaces, feels dirty and she eyes the bathtub like an hour in hot water and a glass of wine would fix things. She has half a mind to close the door on him.

“Delphine,” he presses, tone hardening.

“Cosima.”

“What?”

“Her name is Cosima.”

-

“Working with Leekie could be the opportunity of a lifetime,” she mentions between cautious sips of wine.

Cosima fingers the Dyad business card, tosses it onto her desk. She looks up at Delphine, curl of mouth matching the undercurrent of disquiet in her reply. “I know. _I know._ ”

“So then why are you being so coy?” the reply comes out softer than she expects and when Cosima stills, looks to her less bright and playful, she knows.

-

Leekie caresses her cheek in the car and she knows now that they’re the same.

Liars and actors and scientists.

Playing a given part. Calculated renditions of what people need to believe. It’s their modus operandi. He stumbles in French because she yearns for home and runs his hand down her back because she yearns, yearned for him. Delphine gives Cosima the lead because she needs her to initiate, gives Leekie the lead because she needs him to protect.

When he pulls her to him, leaning in so close his breath blows coffee and the faint hint of disinfectant at her cheeks, and tells her with unrelenting pragmatism, fuck Cosima, Delphine finally thinks _fuck you_. It gets stuck in her throat, itches to get out, but she swallows the bitterness and tries not to let it consume her.

-

Delphine comes back, but not because of Leekie.

She bites her lips, closes her eyes as an insufferable heat rushes up her body when she braves a look to her left. “I can’t stop thinking about that kiss.”

That much is true. She rationalizes a storm in her mind, silently fights herself as Cosima makes it clear she’s sorry.

How’s that for irony.

She recites a line about fluid sexuality and tries to believe it. She can for a moment, because then she does think about that kiss.

Cosima mumbles something about encouragement, but Delphine can’t hear her. She takes a small step forward.

Her thumb brushes across Cosima’s mouth, and she pulls at her, closer, closer, until Delphine kisses her hard, and when she pulls off her cardigan, leans over her, fingers trickling down, tugging at her, tongue slipping into her mouth, it’s not because of Leekie.

-

Cosima tastes just like she talks, bold, brisk, with a little bit of bite around the edges.

Delphine shudders into her as Cosima plants a trail of slick kisses down her stomach. She shuts her eyes, her hips lift, back arches and she holds onto the bed sheets like she’s going to fall. She forgets about Leekie, about Dyad and clones and lies, loses herself and she does fall.

-

Delphine cries because of Leekie. Because of herself. Because with Cosima, she’s never felt so honest.


End file.
